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Smith: Oh say can you see?

By Ben Smith

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

As I am a strong proponent of education and its benefits, today I’m going to teach you all about something very near and dear to everyone: National anthems.

Intricate musical parts of any country’s heritage, these various ballads of “daring do” empower people of nations (provided they know the words) and offer vital time before the commencement of sporting events to visit the lavatory or buy a much needed beer, pretzel, or nacho plate.

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We are the world, full of animosity.

As individual citizens of various nations we pose, hats in hands, hands over hearts, elbows cocked in salute, heads bowed in praise and we pay homage to our nation in grandiose stupendatry, shouting choruses and shedding tears during the high parts.

“O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light…”

Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, wrote the poem “The Star Spangled Banner” after watching the British naval attack of Fort McHenry during the American war of 1812. I say the American war of 1812 because there were other wars raging in Europe at the time (most of them started by this little French dude named Napoleon Bonaparte…see “1812 Overture”).

Why did he write it, though? What was in it for him?

Knowing the time period and the writers of said time period, I’m sure his explanation had something to do with an indescribable rush of emotion while watching the besieged fort through the mists of cannon smoke and glory.

I think he knew he could hook up with a musician, copyright the lyrics and then market it to Congress for a profit…such it the American way.

Pardon my being snide. God bless the republic and save it from itself!

But Key wasn’t the only author of anthems. What about Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier, the penner of the great and rousing “O, Canada” that stirs the hearts of those in the great land to the north, or Francisco González Bocanegra, who wrote the Mexican national anthem?

Across the sea they have “Rule Britannia,” by that magnificent and esteemed James Thompson. And in France, they break bread to the hip tones of La Marseillaise (of “Casablanca” fame).

Such stirring and important contributions to patriotism are these collections of notes and words. They unify spirits; they stir a lust for life in every countryman of every country. At the Olympic Games, these anthems are played nonstop for days on end causing, blindness, paralysis, sepsis, aneurisms in the heart and brain, occasional irregularity and eventually surrender...anything repeated so often would do so (see Panama 1991).

What’s the deal, folks? Why did we use songs to make us feel better than everybody else?

“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

“Englishmen will ne’er ever be slaves.”

“Que veut cette horde d’esclaves, De traîtres, de rois conjurés?” Which either means “What does this horde of slaves, traitors, and plotting kings want?” or “Why won’t anybody buy out little Eifel tower paperweights?”

All of these anthems seem like badges worn to show the countries of the globe how separate they are from one another and how much better than everyone else they esteem themselves.

Every country is the best country without question and if anyone from anywhere says different while I’m within earshot and loaded to the gills, they’ll have my size-12 boots to deal with!

Such pithy bragging, such childish taunting these anthems seem. I’ll admit I get teary sometimes when the U.S. anthem is played but it’s just a song, words and notes that inspire something in me that an entirely different song inspires in someone else from entirely different nation.

Why isn’t there a world anthem? Something we can all play everywhere and love equally? Probably because the idea seems too warm and fuzzy…

I’m a realist; I understand that the whole world holding hands and singing Cum-by-yaw is a little tellitubby we-e-e-eird.

If there is any hope for a unified world, these songs have either got to go or recognize that every nation in the world has flaws, foibles, skeletons in their closet, monsters under their beds, and bats in their belfries’. We are the world, full of animosity.

Twain himself once commented on the stupidity of patriotism and war saying that “man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.”

So I say we prove that old Bushwacking Missourian wrong. Let us drop the charade and shrug our shoulders and say we are not now nor have we ever been perfect and that the invisible lines of the world will only become more and more visible with each hollered stanza and each ear-splittingly screeched chorus.

We are one world despite our eons-old delusions to the contrary. Somebody should write a song about that or at least a snappy jingle that can be played before the super bowl.

Smith is a Rose Hill graduate student in English.

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